Linda Haugsted

Notes from the Writer’s strike, Western Division
November 9, 2007

The center of the Hollywood writing universe Friday morning was an white Enterprise stake-bed truck parked in front of the Fox Plaza office building on the west side of Los Angeles. That was the location of the rally of the Writers Guild of America, West troops on day 5 of the writers strike.

Hundreds of scribes swarmed into the street around the make-shift stage, closing off the Avenue of the Stars. They listened to “stay strong” messages from their own union negotiators, the head of the Screen Actors Guild, even the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who asserted the writers want to be “partners, not peons” in the creative process.

The message of the day: let’s get to the negotiating table. Chief negotiator John Bowman, tongue planted firmly in cheek, told the crowd, “Someone has to be the bigger man. [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers], I love you … come back to the table, baby.” Whether the strike ends now or six months from now, “it’s all up to you,” he said of the producers association.

Union organizers declared they are winning the strike, noting all the series productions that have been shut down due to the writers’ walk-out. They painted the strike as the result of 25 years of frustration, begun by a “bad basic cable deal” resulting after the 1988 writers strike and a subsequent three decades of rollbacks in benefits that have lead to a “crisis for middle-class writers and actors.”

Alan Rosenberg, president of the Screen Actors Guild, which has been actively supporting the strikers, told the crowd the writers hold the “moral high ground.”

“We are the product ... we create it and they cash in,” he told the cheering crowd.

Given the proximity of the rally to Fox, that company’s president and chief operating officer, Peter Chernin, was targeted for vitriol on some of the picket signs. Chernin made statements Nov. 7 that the strike might be positive for Fox because of a schedule heavy in reality shows that don’t need writers. Many picket signs bore images of the exec, doctored with his middle finger raised, bearing the message “Write This!” Other messages: “Negotiate!” or the more profane “Suck my pencil!”

Some of the strikers criticized studios for the speed with which they moved to lay off office workers idled by the strike. Seth McFarlane, creator of the animated Family Guy said his staffers were laid off Nov. 7, three days into the strike. He compared the action to two adults fighting, one of whom turns and slaps a nearby child, declaring “You made me so angry, I hit the kids. It’s your fault.”

Shawn Ryan, creator of FX’s The Shield, told me his assistants were notified Wednesday that they would get their pink-slips today. (The last episode of the show was to be completed today).

While they are ready to negotiate, union leaders are not willing to accept any more cuts in benefits. WGA West president Patric Varonne asserted that if the six major studios were to accede to WGA demands, then give the same deal to the Director’s Guild, the agreement for which is up for negotiation next, and treble the result for actors, they still wouldn't be paying out as much as the pay a single CEO.

McFarland joked the concessions on DVD profits and a share of the Internet would be so small it would only force executives to buy Hydrox cookies instead of Oreos.

Not many in the crowd thought the dispute will be easily resolved. Academy Award-winning writer and producer Paul Haggis told me he had been working on the script for the next James Bond movie.

“We’ve gotten into a situation where, for the last 20 years, people think they can steal from you,” he said. He said producers have miscalculated writers’ resolve.

“I think we’re in for a long strike,” he said.

Posted by Linda Haugsted on November 9, 2007 | Comments (1)